Following the US Government’s banning of online scams and the Pakistani Government’s rather humorous attempt to filter out text messages containing words and phrases such as ‘pocket pool’ and ‘honkers’ (use hashtag #PTABannedList on Twitter for more), I started to think about what I would do if I could wave a magic wand and police the digital world in the way I see fit.

Aside from the obvious stuff that we’d all condemn, I’ve come up with five new laws that I’d introduce:

1. Ban the use of 'lol'

I don’t like ‘lol’. I’ve never liked ‘lol’. I can’t even finish writing a lengthy sentence that… nope; can’t do it. What’s wrong with ‘haha’ or ‘hehe’? Did our early character limits in the first ever text-message enabled phones forever rule out the use of a fourth letter?

I don’t think I’d mind so much if it were only used when the typer was actually laughing out loud, but they rarely are. Just wait until someone IM’s you at work with ‘lol’. Jump up out of your seat and take a look at their face. If they’re not laughing out loud, or desperately trying to remain composed and not wee themselves, go over and punch them squarely in the mouth.

2. Enforce proper punctuation in emails and forum comments

If I’m beginning to sound like a grammar Nazi, it’s because I am (runs quick hypocrisy-preventing grammar check in Word). At best, it’s just annoying. At worst, people will misunderstand you.

Let’s look at two examples:

·         Can you smell, Nicky?

·         Can you smell Nicky?

In the first one, we’re asking Nicky if she can smell. In the second, we’re asking someone else if they can smell her. One comma makes all the difference.

We could easily insult Nicky in the above example if we’re not careful. Also, let’s try not to make it LOOK LIKE WE’RE SHOUTING.

I once received an email that read something like this:

hi paul i said id do that thing for you today butshouldnt of things are hectic is it ok if there with you in the morning were having some problems with the trucks in the depow pls reply thanks

If I received that from a member of my team, I’d take a good hour out of my day to buy some card, fold into a conical shape, stick glitter all over it, write ‘fool’ on the front and back (and in reverse in case someone is reading it in their rear-view mirror), put it over their head and then douse them in boiling water. It infringes my moral code.

3. Prevent online giants deciding what I should be looking at

No, Google. I do not want you to customise your search results based upon my search history. If I’d already found what I was looking for, I wouldn’t need to search again. If I do choose to search again, I don’t want to see the same results.

Also, when I tell you not to customise my results, don’t assume that I’ve changed my mind the very next day.

4. Allow cookies, forever

Yes, yes, I know! Everyone complains about cookies and the invasion of privacy. As an online marketing professional*, I have no interest in who my client’s customers are, where they live, what their job is and what they look like. I would, however, like to serve my client’s customers, and only my client’s customers; no one else.

Nobody wants to spend marketing budget showing ads to users who are not interested in them. Cookies allow us to track what’s working and what’s not, cutting out irrelevant ads for those who do not want to see them and maximising our client’s ROI. That way, we keep users happy and grow our clients’ businesses. It’s great!

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

5. Allow me to vote against useless websites

We’ve all seen them. You’re trying to find out the best way to stop cold air leaking in through your old windows, so you do an online search. A range of pages come up from a bunch of random authors and you start clicking through. However, you soon realise that these pages are designed simply to rank high in the search engines and encourage you to click on their AdSense ads. There’s no real information in there at all.

I would like to give these sites a big ‘thumbs down’. Can I have a -1 button, Google?

I’m sure you’ll all agree with these, so vote for Paul as the new Fuhrer of the International Global Association of Worldwide Online Policing of Nations. Lol.

*right?

Here at atom42, we are great believers in tracking everything we do – it’s why we love the online space. So, you can imagine the excitement we felt last week when Google announced they were launching their call metrics feature in the UK, allowing advertisers to track phone calls from their PPC ads, and report on them through the Google Adwords interface.

What is 'call metrics'?

Simply put, it’s a call forwarding system, which allows Google to track how many calls users make from your PPC ads (either from manually typing numbers they see in a desktop ad, or clicking on a mobile click-to-call ad).

Enabling call metrics in your PPC account will allow you to see a variety of metrics alongside click data in the Adwords interface, including:

•    The number of phone calls
•    Phone number impressions
•    A new metric called phone through rate (PTR)

You can also see more granular, call-related data such as call duration, area code of caller and call status (missed/taken etc).

This is a great leap forward for Google, allowing them to start competing with other call tracking providers, with the added bonus of Adwords integration.

Comparing the market for call metrics

Other providers need not worry just yet, however. Although Google will undoubtedly get there eventually, their offering isn’t quite market leading. For a start, it’s pretty expensive - at £1 per call for the advertiser (for calls from a desktop/laptop), this could add a fair amount to low CPAs. There is also the obvious downside which is that it only works for Adwords – whereas other suppliers integrate their technology with other channels such as online directories/organic sources/non-Google PPC sources.

Finally, a major limitation of Google’s Call Metrics is that tracked numbers are, like the current ad extensions, allocated on a campaign level. As a search specialist, it would be far more beneficial to see calls on a keyword level so that we can make more granular decisions – and this is something other providers offer.

‘Bid-Per-Call’ - sneaky or sensible?

Google, as always, have ways of making advertisers want to use their products, despite the negatives. In this case, they have introduced the Bid-Per-Call feature – which will only be available if you are also using Call Metrics. Bid-Per-Call allows advertisers to set a separate bid per phone call. For most advertisers, a phone call is one step further down the conversion funnel, so this bid is likely to be significantly higher than a click bid.

As someone who has previously sneaked phone numbers into PPC ads, I can tell you that my click through rate or ‘CTR’ (and therefore Quality Score) has been affected by the phone number itself taking up precious characters in my creative, which has had a negative effect on my CPCs.

Bid-Per-Call, combined with Call Metrics, will allow a phone number to sit outside the 25,35,35 character limit on desktops (as with the click to call feature on mobile), and will also aid quality score (oh yes, phone bids will contribute to overall quality score) – which could put any advertisers who don’t use the product at an immediate disadvantage. Sneaky.

Potential for success

Flaws and all, I think the Call Metrics system is worth testing as long as the £1 call charge doesn’t put you at an immediate risk of missing any CPA targets (the theory being that the higher conversion rate of a call should negate this cost). It won’t revolutionise my PPC campaigns (we already use keyword level call tracking here at atom42), but it will be interesting, all the same. Bid-Per-Call though, has the potential to be a game changer – watch this space!

Until recently, an unhappy customer was fairly limited in how loudly they could voice their negative opinion about a company; but since the arrival of popular review sites, it has become increasingly easy for a customer to be heard. A quick glance online can now reveal scores of well-meaning business owners who, in an effort to protect their company's reputation, have inadvertently caused a PR disaster by engaging in arguments with unhappy customers.

The four types of reviewer and how to respond to them

Instead of having a highly public row, it’s a good idea to try and resolve issues offline, before responding to customers online. Once the issue is resolved, this often makes a public response easier and naturally more flattering to your company as it shows that you help unhappy customers quickly. With this in mind, here are the four classic reviewer types, and how to deal with them effectively.

The honest reviewer

This type of reviewer has legitimately used the company's product or service and found it to have fallen short of the standard that they expected.

How to respond:  Honestly state that a mistake has been made, and to thank the customer for bringing the issue to light. A simple apology and sometimes a gesture of goodwill can go a long way to not only appeasing the customer, but also making your company look good to potential customers reading the response.

The mistaken reviewer

This type of reviewer has used the company's product or service, but due to an incorrect assumption or a misunderstanding, has expected something which was never promised by the company in the first place.

How to respond: The best approach here is to thank the customer for leaving feedback and politely explain the misunderstanding. Then outline the measures (if any) which are being put in place to avoid customers being confused in the future.
NB: Leaving this type of review unanswered can make your business seem prone to making false promises.

The mystery reviewer

This type of reviewer is sometimes quite vague - almost to the point that they seem to have never been a customer at all. This is sometimes because they’ve genuinely never been a customer!

How to respond: Be wary of competitors leaving unfounded or even slanderous reviews. We always advise our clients to avoid responding to ‘trolls’, and instead to simply report the review as being in violation of the site’s terms of service.Never feed the ‘trolls’ by accusing them of being dishonest - it only makes your company seem equally dishonest.

The unreasonable reviewer

This can be the hardest type of review to deal with, as it sometimes seems that’ no matter how reasonable you are with this past customer, they will never be satisfied. They often won’t be happy until your company’s brand has been denounced live on national television.

How to respond: It’s sometimes worth apologising to this type of customer, and explaining what measures have been taken to resolve the issue.
However, we do occasionally see that a response will only further provoke this type of unhappy reviewer. If so, you could respond simply by outlining the facts from your point of view and the steps taken to resolve the issue. This message is more for the benefit of future customers to see that the company is reasonable and logical, and that the reviewer is simply being unreasonable.

Taking feedback on board

People who leave negative reviews online are often very impassioned. They tend to be the unhappy minority of your customer base, so it's important to keep this in mind when you respond to reviewers by mentioning that poor customer service is unusual.

The other side of dealing with negative customer reviews is to take their comments on board and use them to actually improve your customer service. This is always the best way to address negative customer reviews - by preventing them in the first place!

It seems like new company review sites are popping up every week, and in such an openly opinionated review landscape, it's important to remember that the voice you choose to use when responding to negative reviews should be one you'd be proud to use not only to unhappy customers, but to future customers as well.

Pay-per-click advertising, managed well, can still offer businesses exceptional value for money, as well as unparalleled measurability in terms of your return on investment. But, for the time-rich and cash-poor, there are many other ways you can increase traffic and sales. Combined with traditional PPC and SEO techniques, these lesser-known strategies could see your visitor numbers skyrocket...

1. Use social media to engage your audience

By creating Facebook and Twitter pages where your users can communicate with each other, and which they will find interesting and useful, you can build a loyal community of followers for free. Incentives such as competitions and discounts will help to generate interest. Gradually introduce your brand over time so users don't feel too 'marketed to'.

2. Write and submit expert articles online

You can post expert articles on dedicated article sites, using advice and information you already have through experience. These articles link back to your website, thus creating valuable links, effectively for free.

3. Create a blog to engage with your consumer base

Create your own blog (there are free sites to help you do this) to engage your website visitors with what you do, you can then use your blog posts in a monthly newsletter to your list of contacts. This keeps potential clients engaged with the brand and helps current clients feel a sense of community, as well as (hopefully) providing them with useful hints and tips about your sector.

4. Write and submit press releases

Use PRWeb to send optimised news articles about your business straight to Google News and other sites and blogs. We think it's worth paying a little extra to add anchor text links, though this is optional. There are free sites as well which, while they lack some of the advantages PRWeb offers, can give companies on a very tight budget some much-needed PR, absolutely free.

5. Become a source

A journalist in a relevant sector can do wonders for a company in terms of free marketing, providing targeted 'advertising' on a regular basis, ideally both in print and online. All you have to do is prove yourself as a good source for topics they might be writing about.

6. Use local listings

Create a Google Places listing, which will appear on Google when users search for businesses like yours in your area. Eyetracking studies by SEOmoz have revealed how influential these listings are becoming - users gravitate towards them. Optimise the listing for target keywords you know your customer base is typing in, and ask customers to leave reviews there – this will help you to rank highly for local searches. If your customer base is local, you might also benefit by listing yourself on Foursquare, so people can see your location (and any deals you're willing to offer) on their mobile devices.

7. Add your website to directories

Directories can still work for you, if you do it right. Get listed on high ranking free directories, encourage reviews, and benefit from being at the top of the listings. The link itself can also work in your favour as it can potentially help with SEO.

And finally - once you have generated all those visitors, streamlining your purchasing process is the last, crucial step to online success. This is where, in the end, you will need to convert those visitors into sales, and even small changes at this final stage can make all the difference.

I’m sure I’m not alone in my penchant for dystopian sci-fi novels. Or maybe I am. Either way, one thing I’ve been thinking about since reading Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart is our increasing dependence on technology to get us through everyday life. I can’t help wishing I could fast-forward and take a peek at what life will be like in ten or twenty years time, post-iPhone, post-Facebook, and post-data protection...

SSTLS aims to do just that. The kind of world the author envisions already sounds familiar – could he be joining the ranks of Huxley and Orwell by being ahead of his time? See if you agree - some of his predictions are below.

1. The iPhone becomes another limb

You won’t be able to live without your ‘Apparat’

We’re already heavily dependent on our phones for our social lives, but at what point will they become pivotal to our existence? Will people who don’t wear one be ostracised from society, even penalised? A pebble-shaped pendant that hangs from the neck is what our smartphones could one day become. There’s one point in the novel where New York comes to a standstill and all technology becomes unavailable. The effect this has on people’s psyches is telling – what would happen in a world where we could no longer connect to people through instant messenger? Or shop for stuff online?

2. What data protection?

We’ll be able to view data on anyone, anywhere, at any time

For anyone who already thinks Facebook’s ability to know everything about us is getting creepy, Shteyngart’s world goes one step further. Statistics on our lives, bodies and movements will be easily accessible to all. There is a great scene where Lenny does a few quick searches on his love interest, Eunice, on his flight home, and ends up finding out everything from how much her sister weighs to her credit card transactions and her childhood traumas. Will the internet be the new Big Brother?

3. Social media goes public

Everything you do will be rated, reviewed, and commented on

Ever looked at someone across a crowded room and wanted to know all about them? Socialising and social networking will merge. Rating people in real-time and commenting on their clothes, shoes, and friends might sound shallow, but it could be a fast approaching reality. The prediction is that social networking will become instant and open to all – you’ll be able to point your ‘Apparat’ device at anyone and rate their ‘hotness’, as well as message anyone you see on the street.

4. Citizen journalism multiplies

Everyone around you will be ‘Media’

Ok, so this one’s already kind of true. But picture the scene: you’re at a gathering with your friends and none of you are actually conversing with each other. Why? Because you’re all streaming your own live TV shows to your respective followers. Whether it’s ranting about relationships, or commenting live on the latest current affairs, we’ll all be part of the army of Media types (note the capitalisation) aptly satirised in Shteyngart’s novel. If and when this occurs, media will become something of a free for all, with little credibility – something where everyone streams for the benefit of their own sponsors, and where money is the only object.

5. We’ll forget how to read

Books will become smelly relics of the past

In SSTLS, anyone who reads a book is met with revulsion – books are seen as smelly, pre-historic things, often referred to as historical artefacts. In the book, Eunice has a degree in ‘Images and Assertiveness’, yet she admits that she has never learned to read. Instead, she and her generation only know how to ‘scan’ the endless streams of data they consume – a symptom of the already rapid decline of the print medium. We already see commuters glued to their Kindles and news apps, how long before this impacts on our relationship with literature? Only time will tell.

Other predictions in the cybersphere

While these predictions may sound a little grim, there are some other, more uplifting conversations elsewhere. Predictions for the future of online marketing include:

• Ads that track our eye movements and change according to what content we read
•  ‘Advertainment’ – advertisements which tell the user a story that unfolds in episodes
• Automated search – your phone or tablet will know so much about you that it will search itself spontaneously, knowing exactly what information you need at any given time

For more, check out this blog post by a Google insider.

Could you live without your smartphone? What will be the next thing we just 'can't live without'? All you need is your future goggles and a good old dystopian sci-fi novel to find out...

At atom42 we like to make sure we're making use of all the high quality resources available to us. Online tools such as AdGooroo, AdInsight and Crazy Egg come in very handy for the work we do, for example.

Content tools can be a little more complex, since a robot will read and process text in a very different way to a human brain. One example of this phenomenon is Grammarly, a content checking tool which markets itself as 'an automated proofreader and your personal grammar coach'.

I tried the basic version of Grammarly, which asks you to paste a section of text into a box for it to check for problems. Annoyingly, the two hour free trial of the advanced version asks users for credit card details, so I decided against it. I'm really glad I did....

Using the tool

It was interesting that Grammarly did a plagiarism check. However, those who work in content will know that it's also quite straightforward to paste a section of copy into Google on 'exact match' to check for duplicates. Grammarly also found huge numbers of mistakes in everything but it wouldn't explain what they were unless you signed up and gave credit card details.

I got fed up of seeing so many alleged mistakes on various internet pages, including the ones I'd written, without it letting me see what they were. So I chose two of my favourite classic novels (below) and checked their first pages on Grammarly - I reasoned that if the tool found fault with these works of art then it was not going to be a terribly useful service for me.

Hemingway and Suskind: 'weak'

Grammarly's opinion of both Ernest Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea' and Patrick Suskind's 'Perfume' was a dismissive: 'weak, needs revision', with Hemingway's classic receiving a particularly dismal overall score of 42/100.

But there's still hope: fortunately for Hemingway, the tool generated a number of 'vocabulary enhancement suggestions' for the text.

Keeping the pulse in proofreading

In conclusion, it's one thing making use of the tools on Word to check spelling and grammar, it's quite another asking a robot for an overall 'score' on your text and expecting it's detailed critique to really help assess the value of the writing to a human being - we're much too complex for that.

It’s no secret that a well managed stock portfolio and a good pay per click (PPC) account can both yield a high return on investment. And in each case, while it’s easy to set up an account and get started, managing one can be quite complex.

But the similarities don’t end there. This post highlights five characteristics that PPC marketing and the stock market share.

1. You must research before you invest

Stock market: With a wide variety of options available, it can be overwhelming to decide which stock to invest in. Generally, past performance influences your decision of whether or not to invest.

Pay per click: In PPC you rely on keyword suggestion & traffic estimation tools to decide which keywords to bid upon. Traffic volumes, average costs and search trends can help you to make an informed decision.

2. Performance determines price

Stock market: The current price of the stock is based on the company’s current performance. We’ve witnessed instances such as “Lehman Brothers” where the stock price went right down when the company was in the doldrums.

Pay per click: A keyword’s potential contribution to the company’s PPC return on investment, or its current performance, correspondingly determines the maximum amount you are willing to pay for that keyword.

3. Good performance doesn’t go unnoticed

Stock market: If a stock you invested in results in the company making a healthy profit, you receive dividends, thereby increasing your return on investment.

Pay per click: If you have keywords that perform well, then you are rewarded with a lower cost per click and a higher ad position. Generally, click through rate is a good metric to assess the performance of that keyword.

4. You can build on your success

Stock market: If stock you invested in generated higher returns, you can try to replicate your success by investing in similar companies within that industry.

Pay per click: If you detect highly performing keywords, you can look to expand & invest in similar keywords, plurals, synonyms etc.  Occasionally you can benefit from the odd misspelling, too.

5. You can become a certified partner

Stock market: If you wish to trade on behalf of other customers, a stock exchange membership can go a long way. 

Pay per click: The majority of the advertising networks, like Google, Yahoo & MSN, offer certification programmes. Customers looking for an agency or individual to help with their PPC activity may consider using certified professionals.

atom had a few things on its mind when making the case for attending ad:tech this year. Would it be worthwhile? Would we learn anything new? And how many USB sticks could we grab?

For those who haven't heard of it, ad:tech London is an annual conference aimed at the online marketing sector that bundles together a supplier exhibition and seminars by leading players in the marketplace, along with a strategic conference by keynote speakers.

We attended on the first day and got there for it opening to maximise our chances on all of the above. Having avoided the long queue with our ebadges, there was already quite a buzz from the attendees and stallholders and there was lots to see and do. With over 170 exhibitors and 100+ seminars, it was going to be a struggle to squeeze them all in.

The ad:tech turnout

After getting our bearings, we could see that all the usual products were on show, from display, email, affiliates and social. One of the largest presences was in the mobile sector, with lots of exhibitors trying to stand out from the crowd with their mobile display platforms.  Tracking and analysis also had good visibility with 23 companies trying to convince us we need more than Google Analytics.

Mobile aside, the “next big thing” seemed to come from display via RTB (Real Time Bidding) and re-targeting products. The latter promised more focused targeting of display ads down to product level, resulting in significant increases in CTR. Each supplier seemed to have their own unique algorithm to achieve this, but it presumably only becomes effective with huge volumes, thereby limiting its usefulness to large volume retail sites.

There were a couple of new players to the UK market who had already established themselves overseas, from the USA to India. We managed to have a chat to quite a few of these and will hopefully be able to get some good deals with them as a result!

A worthwhile trip

Overall, the early start and attending on the first day was definitely worthwhile as it was very busy, quite noisy and everyone was feeling fresh and ready to do some business. It was definitely a very useful and engaging conference.

A few new contacts were made along the way, with plenty of interesting propositions to integrate into our future online acquisition strategies. Unfortunately, for the rest of the office, free USB sticks were in very short supply!

We have all heard about how social media is an incredibly powerful tool that has revolutionised the way companies market their products, with the ability to target campaigns at specific customers based on quantitative research and analysis, as well as individual desires.

But you all knew that already didn’t you? Well, it seems that there are some marketing professionals out there who still haven’t acknowledged that social media is an important marketing channel and either don’t ‘get’ it or refuse to accept that it is here to stay.

A recent article in The Telegraph reported on this issue, blaming the ’40-year-old marketing directors’ for being out of touch with modern marketing methods, having not carried on an education in maths past the age of sixteen or been trained in the profession during the digital age.

Whilst this seems a wild generalisation, and I’m sure there are many forty-plus marketers out there who are perfectly adept with digital, it does go to show that social media marketing isn’t as obvious to everyone as we might think. The article also suggests that even when large companies do employ someone to manage online marketing, they do not listen to suggestions made, despite the potential for substantial profit gains.

Why it’s important

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others have a broad reach and allow information to be shared between millions of people in a matter of seconds. Aside from the ability to place targeted adverts, the power of word-of-mouth and customer feedback is huge.

A bad experience with a product or business can be expressed to the world very easily. Similarly, many businesses know that they can put across a good image of their company or brands and be visible to many relevant users. Yet, is there some sense in the conservative approach to social media by some marketing professionals?

Is social media going to overtake television in terms of marketing power?

Whilst there is sense in embracing social media and all of its offerings, we shouldn’t be too quick to claim that it is now the best way that businesses can market themselves. Another article in The Telegraph reports on research by Deloitte, who find that “A typical Briton…spends 118 hours watching TV each month and just 3.3 hours on social networks.”

Whilst social media marketing is more targeted, I can’t imagine that it is more than thirty-five times effective as television. The report also highlights that Pepsi decided to try moving from its usual television adverts during the US Super Bowl to a social media campaign, and are now choosing to switch back to television for next year’s event due to poor performance.

During my time at atom42 I have been performing client/competitor analysis, and have found myself making suggestions to implement online strategies which complement television campaigns to help build stronger brands. I feel that there is a greater sense of trust when someone uses a website where they recognise a character or theme that has been used in a television advert, and hence a greater possibility of conversion. In this way companies can build their brands by utilising both marketing channels together, rather than having them in competition, as Deloitte’s own research suggests.

The consequences of underestimating the power of social media

A good example of a manager underestimating social media was reported by Wired last week. A man running a poultry-keeping website tweeted: "A bet with my boss. He says Twitter is a waste of time. He will give 50p per RT I get but I give him £10 if I don't get 10...". This received approximately 22,000 re-tweets, but alas the boss backed away from the bet – having learnt a valuable lesson I should imagine. It is stories like this, as well as that of Google making $55,000 revenue in eleven minutes through Twitter, that showcase just how effective social media is.

Having a fun and stylish workplace is important to us at atom42, but there’s more to having a lovely office then just being ‘media’.

Since the atoms moved from Gresse Street to Camden High Street, via a fairly major office revamp by designers ‘Space & Solutions’, I've become interested in what makes for an ideal working environment.

For example, should we consider the research that shows that the colour red can lead to success and cocoon ourselves in a womb-like work space, and is it important for our office buildings to boost staff morale?

How our workplaces affect us

As for the red cocoon, I’ve made a stab at testing this theory by covering two walls of my home office in a rather delicious shade of radiccio, so I’ll keep you posted on whether atom43 becomes (even more of) a factory for achievement.

As for morale, research revealed by Tom Dyckhoff in ‘The Secret Life of Buildings’ showed that where we work can physically change our brains, influencing how innovative we are, as well as having a major impact on productivity. Streamlined, minimalist spaces are a no-no, providing little to nurture the occupants’ minds.

Offices which have gone to extremes

How far should we go, then, in the pursuit of an Eden-like workplace? Here are some examples of what other offices around the world have attempted. Our resident Google guru Simon has actually been to the Google Zurich office with the slide (2nd picture) – this is what he thought:

“It's totally ludicrous. It has a fireman's pole which lets you slide down through three floors. There's also a massive chillout room with big fishtanks and you can just sit there listening to ambient music - there's also a whole room just for playing Guitar Hero. The slide goes from the first floor into the canteen, it lands just in front of the desserts bit, so you could feasibly slide down into cakes...”

- yum.

The effects on productivity

The most interesting of Dyckoff’s findings for me was the realisation that some of the most exciting, glamorous and ‘fun’ offices, schools and factories were not just cost effective to build, but also increased productivity significantly throughout the companies that occupied them.

The message for businesses - media and non-media alike – build your workplaces with the people in them in mind. You’ll be repaid with higher productivity and a fiercely loyal workforce.

As YouTube gains more and more importance in the online world, it is necessary for us digital marketers to take it seriously - especially when it interferes with the natural search results!

Research has shown that videos are the most prominent category to be featured in the search engine results pages (SERPS) besides images, news, blogs, shopping and maps.

YouTube SEO will help your videos rank highly in the YouTube search results, as well as in the natural SERPS.

Here are a couple of quick techniques you can use to optimise your videos (perhaps surprisingly, many of them are very similar to traditional SEO):

1. Optimise your title, descriptions and tags with the keywords you are trying to target

2. Ensure that all of the above are enticing, as YouTube takes in to account CTR when determining rankings

3. Build keyword optimised anchor text links to your video

4. Ensure your title and description are relevant to your video, as time on page and bounce rates are relevant factors when determining rankings

5. Have a good preview image: as this image appears in the results page it essential to have an image which stands out from the crowd

6. Use the YouTube Keyword Tool to identify keywords with high search volumes on Google

Well optimised YouTube videos will appear in the natural SERPs, allowing brands to acquire more real estate – for free!

Google Analytics is a free web Analytics product which helps you analyse the activity of users who reach your website. You can find out where they’re coming from, how long they’re staying on your site, what keywords they’re using to get there, whether they’re buying, whether they’re using a smart phone, if they’re returning later, etc, etc. In Google’s own words; 'Google Analytics makes it easy to turn page views into profits and, from our point of view, is an invaluable tool when it comes to optimising online marketing activity'. But with so much data available, how do you find what you are looking for? Here are my top ten tips for Analytics success:

1. Set up Alerts

With so much data at your disposal, it’s easy for any mistakes or improvements to be missed or overlooked. The alert feature (found in the intelligence section) lets you specify certain events you want to be notified about. For example, I might want to be alerted if the conversion rate from my ecommerce site drops below 2% (suggesting something could be wrong with the payment process), or if organic traffic reaches a record high level (suggesting a new high position in the SERPS). With the ability to receive alerts via email or text alerts (only in the US), this tool ensures you will always be on top of your accounts.

2. Set up Advanced Segments

One main flaw of the old Analytics interface was that it didn’t allow you to compare trends for two types of traffic at the same time. Yes, I could filter keyword traffic looking just at brand using the ‘contains’ function, but what if I wanted to compare that to unbranded traffic in one graph? What if I wanted to look at my Yahoo! Display traffic against Facebook traffic for the last 6 months? The only way to do this was by exporting each variable separately and manually creating a graph in Excel. With advanced segments, however, you can specify a source/medium/keyword parameter and then compare multiple segments in one graph. GA also allows you to share these segments with other users (good for consistency) and copy across multiple profiles.

 3. Create Custom Reports to give you what you want quickly

Want to look at total clicks and conversions for each medium in one report? Not an easy task without the custom report feature. An under-rated tool but possibly the one that I use most often, Custom Reports allows you to, well, customise your reports to show only the metrics and dimensions you need. You can even segment your data by time of day to look at hourly clicks/conversions, which can inform any day parting strategies. One major flaw in the custom reporting feature is that you can only see aggregated data for one specified time period – not broken down by day / week within that period (for anyone who has used this feature, you know what I mean!).

4.  Exclude your own site usage

If you spend all day looking at your website, chances are you will be skewing all the site usage metrics - increasing time on site etc. Exclude your IP address in your account settings to make sure your Analytics data is only reflecting actual users, not you!

5.  Interrogate the data

So you are looking at time spent on site for your ecommerce site and you see that it has suddenly increased in the last week. Good, right? Users are engaging more with your site, right? Not necessarily! An increased time on site could mean that users are struggling to find what they are looking for or are clicking aroun aimlessly. Always think about your stats in context and don’t just assume that a line going up is a good thing!

6.  Link with your AdWords account

Being able to see your impression/cost/CTR data in the same interface as time spent on site/pages per visit/bounce rate is highly valuable when trying to optimise your PPC activity. This is why we always recommend our clients link their AdWords accounts to Analytics.

7. Personalise your Dashboard

Many people don’t realise that the dashboard in Google Analytics is fully customisable, allowing a user to see their most important reports on their welcome screen. To add a new graph/report, simply navigate to it as you would normally, then, above the graph, you will see an ‘add to dashboard’ button. Clicking that will make sure you can see that report immediately in the dashboard next time you log in. Each module on the dashboard also contains a handy link, allowing you to view the full report in its usual place, which can be moved around so that more important information can be displayed without scrolling down.

8. Use Google Annotations

You’re running historic reports and you see that your traffic doubled on a specific date three months ago and your immediate question is: ‘why?’ It’s difficult to remember what action at that time led to such a dramatic increase without a significant amount of digging in old emails or change history reports. The Annotations feature allows you to place a comment next to specific dates outlining anything that happened that may have an effect on results which you may need to refer to later.

9. Set up Goals

It might sound obvious, but how can you work out what is working and what isn’t without setting up accurate goals in Analytics? These need to be tested and sanity checked before being taken as gospel, (for example, ensuring the final step is on a confirmation/thank you page, not on the contact us page). Combining goal set up with a goal funnel (which outlines the steps on the way to the goal) will enable you to see where you are losing traffic along the way. You will be surprised how much difference tweaking each step can make to your overall results!

10. Track everything & be consistent!

If I could give you one piece of advice for total Analytics success (it’s like some geeky version of Baz Lurhmann’s ‘sunscreen’), then it would be this – track everything and be consistent with the way you do it! Make sure every link in email communication, every click tag on display creatives, every PPC ad, every voucher code listing and every directory submission has tracking parameters appended to their destination URL. Unfortunately, Google hasn’t quite worked out how to differentiate between upper and lower case and will track ‘google’ and ‘Google’ as different sources, so consistency is also key for making sure you have data you can rely on – as a rule I always use lower case - saves confusion!

In summary, Google Analytics is an invaluable tool for analysing your site’s traffic levels and quality. By using all of the features Google offers, you should successfully be able to navigate your way through the reams of data to find what’s most important to you right now. I said right now.....Go!

News came from Britain’s police inspection body last week that police forces must adapt to protestors who use Twitter and Facebook to organise demonstrations at short notice.

The report came a week after the Egyptian government chose to shut down the internet for 7 days in a bid to prevent protesters from organising themselves on Twitter. Though Google weighed in to help circumvent the block, the vast majority of the country was totally cut off from all sources of independent information in less than an hour – at the mere whim of a desperate political leader. As Iain posted last week, Twitter also helped the protestors’ cause with their speak2tweet technology.

A Novel Strategy

Omar al-Bashir, president of Sudan, has allegedly been watching the situation carefully and come up with a different strategy: to embrace social media. The dictator has requested that more of the country’s 44 million citizens be connected to the internet so that he can use Facebook to overcome his political adversaries. On the same day, Syrian president, Bashir al-Assad, lifted a country-wide ban on YouTube and and Facebook.

Clearly, there are discussions going on all over the Middle East as governments ask how best to use the internet and social media to gain political advantage over opponents – be they rival political parties or the citizens themselves. But the open internet dilemma isn’t only confined to Middle Eastern countries; it's also widely discussed in Eastern Asian politics.

Online Blocking From East to West

North Korea’s decision is, and always has been, the polar opposite of Sudan’s; they’ve had a country-wide block on the internet in place before they even fully knew what the internet was. Similarly, China closely monitors all internet activity with their controversial Great Firewall of China which not only blocks obscene or criminal sites, but also anything that the government considers politically objectionable or merely inconvenient.

Internet users in the West often look to citizens of these countries sympathetically – but we would be well advised to keep an eye on what is happening in our own back yard.

Internet freedom in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia is comparably much better than many dictatorial countries, but there have been signs that governments are keen not only to be more aware of what is happening on the internet, but to also have more control over it.

In 2008, Australia came under fire by filtering content with their Chinese-imitation black-list which not only blocks sites advocating terrorism, but also material about suicide, racism, cartoons and at one stage, the Wikileaks website. Advocates of free speech panned the black-list.

Earlier this year, the Canadian government implemented usage-based billing in the country; the decision was so controversial that it is being reviewed. If it does get passed, Canadian users will be charged high fees for exceeding meagre bandwidth limits. Though not an outright ban, the policy would limit many users to how much they can use the internet (based on what they can afford) – and greatly limit how they use services like Skype, Netflix and YouTube.

The United States has discussed net neutrality for several years despite huge opposition from user groups. UK users also face a similar battle against net neutrality which, if endorsed, would allow ISPs to regulate which content we have access to – and how much we pay for it.

The British Response

In the mean time, the British police advisors are undoubtedly watching closely to see how Libyan leader Gadhafi's stance against Facebook is working. Libya was disconnected from the internet only days before protestors started to take control of several army bases. They've probably noted with some mirth that his former advisors suggested he resign – via Twitter. (Perhaps the reason that they are former advisors.)

No single political strategy is the right one, and different countries obviously require different internet strategies in order to be effective and maintain their power. But one thing seems certain: blocking the internet is rarely a way to maintain long-term power and content supporters. The only exception seems to be North Korea – but even there lies murmurings of a quiet uprising inspired by the Middle East, being helped along in part by their southern neighbours.

For now, the Metropolitan Police seems content with the state of peaceful protests in London. Their comment: "Met Police happy with current protest".

However, should that sentiment ever take a turn, you will certainly not read about it on Twitter or Facebook. As the new saying goes, "The revolution will not be Tweeted."

I think it might be speak2tweeted, though.

“Hi, my name is Kate and I’m addicted to my smartphone”

Our very own Kate Prior isn’t alone. Having invested in a brand spanking new iPhone just before Christmas, the number of hours I’ve spent Facebooking/checking emails/searching/YouTubing/gaming is probably into the millions... Ironically the number of minutes spent actually calling anyone is probably only about five. My point, and the point of this article, isn’t to inform you that I don’t any friends; rather that smart phones are taking over OUR LIVES. But, you probably knew that already. In fact you’re probably reading this on your smart phone right now.

125 years of Angry Birds is played EVERY DAY

Did you know that there are 1 billion mobile internet users globally; they account for 23% of all time spent accessing the web? These people are browsing, using applications (including a lot of Angry Birds), emailing, watching videos and buying. 40% of all tweets are from mobiles. If this doesn’t tell you the importance of mobile Internet use then I recommend you put down your dialup modem, leave your house for five minutes and look around. Or alternatively take a trip on the London Underground – where I imagine 124.9 of the aforementioned Angry Bird years are played out.

But what does this mean to the everyday marketer?

I’m not here just to ramble about mobile use in general - this is atom42’s blog after all. The thing you need to disseminate is that there are a lot of people going online from their mobiles, and of course from products such as the iPad. As marketers, we need to use this to our advantage. After all, a lot of people aren’t yet realising the size of the mobile market, meaning that at this relatively early time, there’s a lot of opportunity to be had. If you own an online shop, consider that since June 2010 there has been a 600% growth in online mobile sales.

However, it’s important if you do set up specific mobile channels, that you track them effectively. You might consider managing them separately to your usual campaigns; to better see the return on your investment.

But don’t do it for the sake of it!

So yes, there’s a lot of opportunity. But to stress, this isn’t to say you should immediately speak to your development team and create an app, a mobile site and redirect all traffic from anything other than a desktop PC to them.

No, the important thing is to think about it carefully. Does your business suit the mobile environment? Are people searching for your brand, your services, or your products on the move already? In fact, are people already reaching your business from smartphones?

You might consider using an Analytics web package to investigate the traffic to your site, and use tools such as the Google Keyword Tool to see trends in the market.

The last thing you want is to rush into a decision and end up with a forgettable experience and a large invoice, or worse, end up being plastered over the internet for your incompetence.

Mobile marketing naturally doesn’t suit every business. Make sure you know it suits yours.

The future of the smartphone online experience

Currently 85% of all new mobile handsets are able to access the Internet...

Mobile advertising spend is set to grow 781% in the UK - and up to 1024% in Europe - by 2015...

Even secure services such as accessing financial details will be done by over 1 billion people by 2015...

The growth of mobile certainly isn’t finished yet, in fact we’re just starting to touch on the exciting new possibilities that it has to offer. Personally I think the next explosion will be the purchasing of products through mobiles. It’s only a matter of time before you’ll be able to wander past a shop window, point your phone at an item of clothing, and immediately be taken to a purchase screen for the item.

Think Shazam for clothes.

It’s all very exciting...

The beginning of 2011 has been one of the most tumultuous periods in recent history for the Middle East, with countries across the region - from Tunisia and Egypt to Yemen and Libya, experiencing political unrest and violence as people take to the streets in demonstration against unpopular incumbent regimes. The history and politics of the area is not something I pretend to fully understand, so I’ll keep this post about the simple but effective piece of innovation that these hard times have brought about, namely Speak2tweet.

Speak2tweet (@speak2tweet), is a joint endeavour between Google, Twitter and SayNow – a company recently acquired by Google which specialises in merging voice technology with social media. It was launched on the 31st of January with the intention of helping the people of Egypt stay connected with each other and the outside world after the Egyptian government shut down internet access in an attempt to disrupt protesters. The service is essentially a voicemail service that allows the distribution of messages via Twitter, allowing people in the affected areas to post and listen to messages without the need for internet access.

So how does it work?

Users simply ring one of three freephone numbers and leave a short voicemail. A link to the voicemail is then posted on Twitter’s designated speak2tweet page with hashtags automatically added to indicate the message’s country of origin. People without internet access can listen to messages by dialling the same numbers. At the time of writing, @speak2tweet had already logged over 2,500 tweets.
 
Soon after the service was launched, the sites Alive in Egypt, and later, Alive in Libya were set up to translate Arabic voicemails into English and transcribe them, giving people around the world an up-to-date account of what’s happening in the Middle East. 

Simple concepts in a high tech environment

Speak2Tweet proves that simple, intuitive innovations are often the ones that gain traction in the online world, much like Twitter itself did back in 2006. The microblogging site’s original concept of sharing 140 character updates with friends was brilliantly simple, arguably one of the reasons it’s been so successful and now has around 200 million users worldwide. 

In my opinion, Google have created an uncomplicated, effective solution in Speak2tweet, and anything that can help people stay in touch and share information under the very difficult circumstances in the Middle East is a good thing.

It seems this time, the search giant that doesn’t always seem to live by their mantra of ‘Don’t be Evil’, deserves a pat on the back.